7 BEST art museums in Russia outside Moscow & St. Petersburg
1. Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum
This is one of the oldest public museums in Russia. The main building, housing a collection of Russian art, is located in the Military Governor’s House right inside the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.
Notable exhibits include works by Nicholas Roerich, Boris Kustodiev, Mikhail Nesterov and Ilya Repin – some of which were donated to the museum by famous Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, a native of the city.
Alongside Russian art of the 18th-19th centuries and avant-garde works, the museum also features a collection of ancient Russian icons.
Be sure to examine in detail Konstantin Makovsky’s ‘Minin’s Address to the Nizhny Novgorod Residents’, literally the largest painting in Russian art (698 x 594 cm or 41.4 m²). Recently, a separate hall has been dedicated to it in the museum’s building on Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment.
2. Serpukhov Museum of History and Art
In the small town of Serpukhov, just 99 km south of Moscow, the art museum is one of the main attractions. It’s housed in a historic building, the mansion of Anna Maraeva, a local merchant’s wife who started the collection.
There, you’ll find works by the ‘Peredvizhniki’ (Itinerants), Ivan Shishkin’s forest landscapes, avant-garde paintings by Natalia Goncharova and Robert Falk, as well as a collection of Flemish and Italian masters.
The jewel of the collection is Konstantin Makovsky’s impressive painting ‘Beneath the Crown’, which pictures a medieval Russian scene before a wedding.
3. Tula Regional Art Museum
This museum’s collection was formed after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution from nationalized paintings taken from various local noble estates.
In addition to masterpieces by Ivan Aivazovsky, Ilya Repin and Isaac Levitan, the museum boasts an extensive collection of Western European art, including works by Italian, Dutch and French artists.
There are also works by renowned avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky.
And, as you stroll through the halls, don’t miss Boris Kustodiev’s ‘The Beauty’. And the huge circular painting ‘Radiant Phoebus’ by Valentin Serov will immediately catch your eye.
4. Tver Regional Art Gallery
This gallery is located in the magnificent Tver Imperial Palace, a waystation palace built for Catherine the Great to make her travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow more comfortable.
The museum’s foundation was laid by the royal family, so the collection includes portraits of several emperors.
Alongside masterpieces of Russian art, such as paintings by Vasily Surikov, Isaac Levitan, Ilya Repin and other renowned artists, the museum also features an intriguing collection of official Soviet art, including works by Alexander Deineka, Igor Grabar and Arkady Plastov, including his most famous painting – ‘First Snow’.
5. Perm State Art Gallery
This collection was assembled piece by piece by local enthusiasts after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The gallery was housed in the local Transfiguration Cathedral until 2023, when the building was returned to the Church.
A new building was then specially constructed for the gallery, which opened in March 2026.
In addition to fine art (works by the Vasily Vereshchagin brothers, Vasily Surikov, Arkhip Kuindzhi and other great artists), the museum houses a large collection of Asian decorative arts and ancient ceramics. It also holds a unique collection of wooden sculpture.
6. Novosibirsk State Art Museum
You can trace the entire history of Russian painting at Siberia’s main art museum, from icon painting to the ‘Peredvizhniki’ and avant-garde artists.
The museum was opened by order of the Soviet government and the building of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee was allocated for it.
Works from the collections of leading metropolitan museums, including the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum, were redistributed there.
In addition, a large section is dedicated to Nicholas Roerich and his Himalayan landscapes.
7. Samara Regional Art Museum
This collection was started by a local merchant named Konstantin Golovkin in 1897. The museum’s luxurious building originally belonged to the Volga-Kama Commercial Bank.
The interiors boast an abundance of stucco work, a grand marble staircase, columns and other decorative elements, including unusual stained-glass windows in the Art Nouveau style.
In addition to 19th-century masters – Aivazovsky, Savrasov, Makovsky and others – the museum has a large collection of ancient Russian icons.
The museum’s pride and joy, however, is its extensive collection of Russian avant-garde art from the 1910s–1920s, featuring works by Aristarkh Lentulov, Pyotr Konchalovsky, David Burliuk, Mikhail Larionov, Olga Rozanova and Kazimir Malevich among others.